How to Start and End your Stitching

My Aunty Kim taught me this trick when I was a young cross-stitcher. It saves so much knot-tying grief :) You'll love it too :) 1. Cut an arm-length of embroidery thread. Embroidery thread always has 6 strands twisted together. Hold a thread end between your index finger and thumb, and flatten it with your thumb nail so the 6 strands are flat. 2. Separate the 6 strands into 3 and 3. 3. Because you're learning, tape the 3 & 3 down with a space between them. (SIDEBAR: once you get used to this technique, you can hold the 3 & 3 in your left hand, the other in your mouth, then separate with your right hand.) Hold the other end of the thread with your right hand. With your left hand (see picture), drag your finder between the 3 and 3 (holding it as you drag, see picture) all the way to the end of the strand in your right hand. Important: The 6 strand in your right hand will twist and kink. Remedy this once and a while throughout the separating process= Left Hand: hold the thread tight, Right Hand: drag the 6 strands between your fingers (from left hand to end) to straighten and unkink. Then continue with the separating technique until you've got 2 separate sections of 3 and 3. 3. Take one of the strands of 3 and fold it in half. (Set aside the other strand-set of 3 strings.) You'll have one end with tails and one thats folded & creates a loop :) 4. Combine the 3 and 3 into 6. Get a needle. This is the end you will be threading. 5. Lol, there's the money shot. To make it easy to thread the needle, I suck on the thread for a bit, then drag/flatten it between my top lip & bottom teeth. Very attractive. Do this a few times and it should thread well :) 6. Have the back/inside of the fabric facing you. 7. Thread your first stitch but don't pull the loop thru. Then, put the needle thru the loop. 8. Now pull the thread/needle end till it's tight (*be careful not to pull the needle off the thread). In the above 2nd picture, the needle is pointing to where the loop was. This is so easy... once you get used to it...it will make your stitching cleaner/neater, stronger, faster! When you run out of thread, use the other 3-strand and do the same thing again.
9. Once your thread runs out or you're done stitching, take half (3) of the thread out of the needle-eye. Leave half (3) in.
10. Near the place where your stitching ended, weave the needle under a stitch, once. Then take the needle off. Tie the two threads in a few knots. 11. Trim the tails near the knot. You're done :) Go here for more of my How Tos :] PS. this is my 700th blog post! woah!

15 comments:

  1. WOW! This is one of the most useful things I've read in a long time. So well explained and the photographs are great! I'll be linking to this in the Daily DIY.

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  2. Hey LA, just sent you my payment, Loved the post for todays tutorial. Nice picture BTW!!

    I have a ?, When wanting to put a link to someones site .... and you just want the persons name in your post (instead of http:// etc.etc.) What do you do? Whenever I go to add a link it never gives me an option to have just a name displayed....it always wants the whole web address.
    thanks ahead of time.

    My eyes can no longer stay awake, I need to be up by 2:15 A.M..YUK!!

    Good night.

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  3. this is such a great tutorial la!
    you should make a tutorial book! :)
    (the ones with the journal kit were also awesome.)

    oooh, congrats on 700th post sweety!! :)

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  4. you so rad! (even if you don't like harry potter...you're still pretty much a big deal. but we will be working on that whole situation :) ha)

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  5. Well that's a neat little trick. And a little bit of extra LA DNA in all of your products (hee hee). : )

    Thanks for the great tutorial! I'm trying this immediately. Hmmm, when do we get to see what you're workin' on there?

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  6. lol, yep... there's a little LA-Dna in all of it... ;)

    the demo-photo is the back of this ring i stitched last week, http://frecklednest.blogspot.com/2008/08/2-things.html

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  7. Great "How-To" Thank you so much. Now I have to learn how to do the rest of it...lol! You know the stitching in between.

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  8. Ooooh very nice (and I'm finally logged in properly as myself this time instead of my earlier witness protection blog name).

    Embroidery thread just cries out to be chewed and slobbered on. I'm sure Lola would agree.

    I love your ring design. Not sure why I didn't recognize it? Just goes to show how different the things appear when you look at them close up or from a different angle. Maybe you should post a whole bunch of FN stuff photographed in a totally different way. There's an idea for your 1000th post (hee hee) - right around the corner right.

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  9. LOL! I start & finish my thread that way too! My grandma showed me that a loooooong time ago!!

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  10. OMG! I love that idea. Thanks so much for sharing. I'm just learning how to "stitch"!

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  11. Okay... I have been crafting for a super long time and never learned to start or finish my stitches like this! THANK-YOU!

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  12. FYI I was always taught to use an 18" length of thread to prevent wear on the threads as you repeatedly pull through the material...it keeps it from shredding so much. Also if you pull one thread out of the group of six one at a time and put them back together...into groups of two or three or however many you sew with...it is a snap and will almost never get tangled. Haven't seen this technique but will definately try it...will make the back of the embroidered towels look much nicer. Thanks.

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  13. That IS a great way to start it! So much cleaner than what I had been doing.

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  14. Awesome! Thanks SO much, big help.

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Thank you for reading. I now blog over at http://FreckledNest.typepad.com ...if you have any questions, please email me at LA[@]FreckledNest[.]com